Turn on your love lights

Fundraising campaign hopes to help a new wave of people suffering from opioid addictions

Discovery House is shining a light on the stigma faced by those recovering from addictions.

With more than 1,000 people dying from illicit drug overdoses in B.C. in the first nine months of 2017, fundraisers like the Shed the Light on Addiction campaign by Discovery House are of the utmost importance.

Jerome Abraham, executive director of Discovery House, said the Okanagan is the second highest in overdose deaths per capita in the province.

“The stigmas keep people in addiction. Now we’re seeing people who weren’t traditionally associated with addiction. It has become more prevalent in high schools and it goes across every piece of society,” Abraham said.

Opening the new Discovery House location on Winnipeg Street in October has allowed people in the residential area to see that the men working through addiction are no different than anyone else, Abraham said.

He went through Discovery House’s first Penticton location as a client.

“Nobody can tell, like, OK, that guy has a sign on his head saying he’s an addict because I haven’t been in active addiction for eight years,” Abraham said.

“This campaign is just to show that we’re just one of your neighbours putting up Christmas lights.”

He invited the public to come to Discovery House today, not just to support the house financially with the light campaign, but also to say hello, take a tour and have cookies and hot chocolate.

“To start building that community, because I think a lot of long-term addiction happens, the root causes are generally some trauma and inability to regulate emotions and things like that,” Abraham said.

“It doesn’t have to last as long as it does, but I think what happens is people become disenfranchised from society and that attitude that these are just throwaway people. It hasn’t served anybody.”

Around 25 per cent of the funds for Discovery House come from grants and other funding sources, leaving the house to come up with the rest of their operating costs through fundraisers like the Shed the Light campaign.

One bulb is $10 and a strand of 25 bulbs is $250. Funds go directly to Discovery House, and the lights will be strung up on the home.

To purchase bulbs, contact 250-462-1388 or email prrs@shaw.ca.

DALE BOYD/Penticton Herald Discovery House care worker Richard Haughian and program manager Ken Jones get ready to set up some donated Christmas lights at Discovery House. Both men are former clients of the addictions treatment facility. The house’s grand opening is today from...